


Busted Valentine

by whispersofday



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, HEA, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Magical Accidents, No Smut, Prompt Fic, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22702564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whispersofday/pseuds/whispersofday
Summary: Draco and Hermione find themselves stuck together on Valentine’s Day.Written for Strictly Dramione’s Valentine Fic Exchange FestA Valentine for Iris CalassePrompts from Iris: thyme, Gadding with Ghouls, werebunny, NeopetsExtras: Older Romance (30s-40s), No Smut.  (Time travel and Muggle AU were also mentioned, so I tried to give a small nod to those).  Happily Ever After, please!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger
Comments: 18
Kudos: 67
Collections: Strictly Dramione Valentine’s Day Fic Exchange Fest





	Busted Valentine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IrisCalasse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisCalasse/gifts).



> This was so incredibly hard! Thank you for the fun prompts, Iris! I hope you enjoy this fluffy little drabble. And Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!

“This is all your fault, Granger,” Draco Malfoy hissed at the curly haired brunette sitting next to him under a palm tree. It was unmercifully hot on the small beach the two found themselves on, and neither had been prepared for such an excursion. Draco had rolled up his pant legs and had unceremoniously removed his shoes, socks and tie. His suit jacket was most likely still on the coat rack in their office that was some unknown time and distance away. “If you hadn’t invented this contraption,” he continued, “we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Granger?” laughed the woman beside him. “You must be in a mood, if you’re falling back on that. You haven’t called me Granger in years. And you’re as much to blame for this as I am.” Hermione gave him a side eye sneer. Her shoes and stockings were next to his, and she found some relief that it had been an unseasonably warm February in Britain, so she had worn a lighter skirt that day.

“No,” Draco replied firmly. “No, this is entirely your fault. No matter how much you’d missed watching your favorite programs, you should have either gone back to your muggle world to enjoy them, or just let them go! Wizards had functioned just fine without rotting our brains watching useless drivel.”

“Useless drivel? As I recall, Malfoy, it was you who came to me begging for my help! It was your idea to corner the market and get some of your family money back!”

“But you actually did it!” the blonde man yelled. “And now, somehow, we are stuck inside … Merlin, what program are we in now?”

Hermione sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear while Draco stared curiously at the scene unfolding around them. “I think we’re in a new series, now,” she said. It would be a welcome change, in her opinion. And, if they were lucky, it might mean they were finally going to get out of this mess she had put them in.

“No more werebunnies on the island?” Draco asked, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. “Did we miss the ending? Who did Ignacio pick to be his werebunny bride?”

“I thought it was all useless drivel? You sound pretty invested in Ignacio’s love life.”

As she spoke, the sand starting shifting beneath them. They quickly rose to their feet, Draco picking up their shoes and accessories as he stood. Together, the two watched in wonder as the sand seemed to fall into cracks and disappear, leaving an old wooden floor in its place.

“Well,” said Hermione, “it looks like we’re stuck for more than just one series.”

Draco gave a curt nod of his head and eyed the witch beside him. “It really was a fine bit of magic you put together. Can you imagine how exciting viewers will find it to actually be in their favorite program, as opposed to just watching it on the Vision Glass?”

“Could we really have not come up with a better name than Vision Glass?” Hermione asked, almost to herself, as she tentatively started walking away from where the Palm Tree had been.

Everything had disappeared with the sand, including the heat. Thankfully, even though there was no source to be found, the space had a grey light that allowed them to see each other and the ground. 

“Television was already used by the muggles,” Draco said. “And it isn’t really the same thing, as you’ve explained to me countless times. Vision Glass is a straightforward name, and your idea. Well, the name,” he added with a smirk. “The product was my idea and has been quite lucrative.” Draco was beaming proudly, a swagger in his step.

Hermione chuckled at his display and the two continued to walk together. “It’s Valentine’s Day, Draco. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get this successfully launched in time.”

“So, we’ll launch the live interaction function over Easter. It’ll be fine. First, we have to get out of this, though. Any idea why we don’t have our wands?”

“Didn’t I already explain that to you?” Hermione asked, her voice raised a barely noticeable notch. “You’re almost as bad as Harry, tuning me out when I’m telling you something important.”

“Just remind me, then, you know-it-all, swat. It’s not like you don’t like explaining how things work; just explain it again,” Draco said and promptly sat down on the floor, casting her shoes and stockings aside while he dusted his feet off with one of his socks.

“The charms allow any witch or wizard to use verbal spells only. Wands are not allowed as they may interfere with the complex magic bindings that make this work.” Hermione slumped her shoulders and looked at Draco. “Thank you for saving my things,” she said as she sat down beside him. “I’m sorry I was short. You’re right, we have to get out of here. I just don’t understand what went wrong. Everything was working perfectly yesterday!”

“Would another show have started if it was going to?” Draco asked.

“I don’t really know,” said Hermione. “In theory, we should have landed on _Werebunny Island_ , selected our beach attire and at the end of the first episode have had the option to continue, enjoy a meal with our program, or come back later.”

“Why’d you pick that program?” asked Draco.

“It seemed like a good one to use for the holiday. Pointless romantic entanglements and skimpily clad magic folk to get the viewers’ hearts pitter-pattering.”

“See, you sound like me there,” Draco said. “I would have expected you to pick one of the historical programs.”

“The only historical one available right now is the Wizardheart Movie Channel’s _Gadding with Ghouls: the Untold Story of Gilderoy Lockhart’s Fall from Fame.”_

Hermione had to bite her tongue as Draco burst into loud barks of laughter. 

“Oh, Merlin! I want to see that!” he exclaimed. “Do you think they got anything right?”

Hermione smiled. “I know they got a pretty good actor to play him. And the preview I saw had him washing his hair with Occamy Egg Yolk Shampoo and running away from the bubbles in his bath.”

“I want to see that right now!” Draco said, laughter in his voice.

Before his laughter had faded, the wooden floor started to buckle. Draco reached out for Hermione and pulled her close to him as the space around them took a new form. The floorboards slowly morphed, changing into lilac colored tile with floral patterns in the corners. Walls appeared, bright white with yellow accents. And, just inches in front of them, a giant bathtub with a showerhead and shower curtain erupted from the floor, shooting bubbles into the air and an invasively strong aroma of lavender. 

“What have you done?” Hermione whispered. “What have you subjected us to, Draco!?!” she added with a screech.

But Draco was too busy laughing to answer her. “How did anyone ever take this man seriously?” Draco said. “His only real contributions to wizarding society were his beauty charms, and even those were likely stolen from wizards and witches more talented than he was.”

“Why did it listen to you?”

“Pardon?” Draco asked, his smile falling slightly. 

“Draco Malfoy, ask it to stop.”

The expression on his face was easy to read if you knew him. He looked guilty. “Stop current viewing,” he said without taking his eyes off of Hermione. Immediately, the scene around them paused as if frozen in time. 

“You don’t look surprised that it worked, Draco.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I had a surprise planned for you. I didn’t realize that you’d already set the program up for _Werebunny Island_ , so I think I mussed things up a bit.”

“You were playing around with the programing?” Hermione asked, confusion and anger fighting for control of her mood.

“As of yesterday, it was working perfectly, right?” he asked, pulling his hand through his hair. When she nodded her head, he continued. “Well, even though I have known you since we were kids, I sometimes forget just how much of a perfectionist you can be. So, I simply assumed, since it was working perfectly, you wouldn’t want to run any more tests on it.”

Hermione looked at him as if he had gone mad. 

“Right,” he continued. “I should have known better. But so should you have! It’s Valentines Day! Of course, I’m going to do something! We’ve been married for twelve years, Hermione. I wasn’t going to just forget about it. I wanted this development on the Vision Glass running so that you and I could actually partake in a very important program that is airing tonight!”

“What program?” Hermione asked, trying not to lose her irritation. 

“You were wrong about one thing, Mrs. Malfoy,” he said, smirking at her raised eyebrow. “There is, in fact, another history series available. And I can’t believe you didn’t know about it.”

“What are you talking about, Draco?”

“The Wizarding History Chanel is running a special on popular novelties in the wizarding world after the war.”

“That isn’t supposed to air until this summer,” Hermione replied impatiently.

“Wrong. The special on us won’t air until this summer. The one on Ron and Hannah’s restaurant airs tonight, on Valentines Day, in honor of all the famous couples that were married there.”

“Oh,” Hermione said, biting her lip. “We were married there.”

“And I asked you to marry me there.” Draco watched as she smiled slowly. 

“That’s what went wrong,” she said. “We had two programs set to run at the same time. So, it just played all of _Werebunny Island_ and will keep us in here until your show actually starts. I don’t understand about the food or clothes, though.”

“I was nervous, so I locked the controls so you wouldn’t stumble across my surprise. You were going to have us pick our options at the start, but I already picked for tonight so that probably just defaulted for your program, too. We’re going to be eating Hannah’s Sunday Roast and Sticky Toffee Pudding.”

Hermione couldn’t hide her smile. “You were so nervous when you proposed, you dropped my ring on the pudding. It had been one of the few times I’d seen your mask fall when we were in public. I think I fell more in love with you in that moment – I had no doubt I was going to say yes to you.”

“Well, I had every doubt. We’d come a long way, you and I, but it was still a very different world for a former Death Eater, even for one madly in love with a muggleborn. I’m still so relieved you said yes, Hermione. I can’t imagine my life without you. Or Scorp and Ava. When I found out there was going to be a history special on the weddings at the original _Thyme Spice_ , I just had to make sure we could experience it as if we were actually there again.”

“That is a wonderful surprise, Draco,” Hermione said and leaned forward to kiss her blonde husband. “But, do you think we could come back when it’s actually going to air? Or are we keeping this interactive Vision Glass to ourselves?”

“George and Blaise are already distributing the spell sheets to customers.”

“So,” Hermione said, an edge in her voice as she stabbed him in the chest with her finger, “you mean to tell me that not only was this your fault the entire time, but that you knew it was your fault, too? You are so busted, Draco Malfoy.”

“Well, honestly, if you’d just taken the break we all asked you to, instead of trying to make sure everything was perfect …” Draco stopped at the look on his wife’s face. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise!”

“How, exactly, Mr. Malfoy?” she asked.

Draco pulled Hermione into an embrace and kissed her neck softly. “Has Scorp told you about Neopets … ?”

“We are not commandeering another piece of muggle technology!”

“But think of all the children! They’d love a little pet in their pocket!”

“Draco –” Hermione started, but her words were cut off as the bathroom around them puffed away in a cloud of fog and the overwhelming scent of lavender was replaced by spice and burning candles. “Oh, it’s starting,” she said. 

“And just like television,” Draco continued, “Neopets could be so much more in the wizarding world! We could corn—”

“Draco,” Hermione interrupted him. “I love you and your Valentine surprise.”

Draco stopped and looked around at the beauty of the original _Thyme Spice_ restaurant, as it had looked before it had been burned down by a competitor. Taking his wife’s hand, together, they sat down at a candlelit table set for two.

“I’m so glad you said ‘yes,’” Draco said to her as he squeezed her hand from across the table. 

Without a word, Hermione took her hand from his and moved her chair beside his. She leaned into his shoulder and, holding hands again, the couple watched the history of the restaurant unfold around them.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Love,” Hermione breathed into his neck.

Draco inhaled the scent of her hair as he kissed her head. “Happy Valentine’s Day, my lovely bookworm.”


End file.
